Archive for the ‘Edwards’ Category

(AP) — Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton fought for a breakout in their eyeball-to-eyeball Democratic duel while Republican John McCain hoped to bury his rival’s presidential hopes in a blur of voting Tuesday from Alaska to the Atlantic.

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An enormous cache of delegates was at stake — not enough to clinch a nomination but plenty enough to mint a runaway favorite, or even two.

The days of retail politicking in rustic diners was a distant memory, although just weeks old. Sens. Clinton and Obama each poured more than $1 million a day into TV ads in the last week alone; Clinton buying an hour on the Hallmark Channel for a town hall meeting on Monday night, Obama seeing some $250,000 disappear in 30 seconds in his Super Bowl ad a day earlier.

The only safe prediction about campaign 2008 is that no prediction is safe.

Experts once assumed, for instance, that today’s “Tsunami Tuesday” primaries and caucuses would settle the nomination struggles in both parties. It’s now obvious, however, that hand-to-hand combat over delegates could continue for weeks, if not months, at least among the Democrats.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Sen. Barack Obama swept to victory in the Iowa caucuses Thursday night, pushing Hillary Rodham Clinton to third place and taking a major stride in a historic bid to become the nation’s first black president. Mike Huckabee rode a wave of support from evangelical Christians to win the opening round among Republicans in the 2008 campaign for the White House.

Obama, 46 and a first-term senator from Illinois, told a raucous victory rally his triumph showed that in “big cities and small towns, you came together to say, ‘We are one nation, we are one people and our time for change has come.'”

Nearly complete returns showed the first-term lawmaker gaining 37 percent support from Iowa Democrats. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina appeared headed for second place, relegating Clinton, the former first lady, to a close third.

Huckabee celebrated his own victory over Mitt Romney and a crowded Republican field. “A new day is needed in American politics, just like a new day is needed in American government,” the former Arkansas governor told cheering supporters. “It starts here, but it doesn’t end here. It goes all the way through the other states and ends at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

We have made a life-long study of the communist system and the communist world. Perhaps the number one precept of that system is ideology (and loyalty to the party) is much preferred to ability and competance.

Why then, during the so called “debates” are we seeing such communist higging conduct by candidates of both parties trying to show who is the more “pure”?

Recommened reading:

COMPETENCE OVER IDEOLOGY
By Cal Thomas

While Sen. Sam Brownback and Gov. Mitt Romney sparred over who was pro-life first (the Republican version of the Democrats’ battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over who was first to oppose the war), I suspect most people are more interested in which 0candidate is best equipped to run the government.

We’ve published the essay below before so if you find your lips starting to move as you read it; that is entirely our fault. We thought we would republish this essay, though, because of the stalemate in the U.S. Congress. No funding bills have been agreed upon this session and the most important one, the defense appropriations bill, was pulled from the floor of the Senate by Senator Harry Ried, the Majority Leader. Mr. Reid also engineered the meaningless all night “pillow fight” in the Senate which amounted to nothing.

By John E. Carey
Peace and Freedom
Republished July 28, 2007

There seems a lack of civility, good manners, decorum and protocol in Washington these days.

And it has spread beyond Washington to the internet and to email onscenities.

One side frequently calls the other side names; instead of making organized, logical arguments.

We entered the world of the “blogosphere” on July 4, 2006. In this internet land of people discussing world events, the language we found often is particularly harsh, polarizing and nasty.

Former President Bill Clinton entered (or re-entered depending upon your point of view) the fray on Sunday, September 24, 2006, during an interview with Chris Wallace on the Fox News Sunday show. Associated Press writer Karen Matthews, reporting on the exchange, called it “combative.”

That’s not a word usually associated with a president during a media interview. I can’t think of that word ever applied to an ex-president during a media exchange — especially with a president.

This may just qualify Mr. Clinton for another description: “not presidential.”

Clinton accused host Chris Wallace of a “conservative hit job.” Not presidential at all. He seemed to be just venting rage. Who needs that?

Did president Clinton miss a memo about letting others mix it up in public with the opposition and their media? Even my Vietnamese-born wife observed: “Good thing Clinton didn’t interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox. It might have ended up with Bill and Bill on the floor slugging each other.”

Not presidential.

Last week, in mid-July 2007, the two Democrat front runners for the nomination of their party to run for president duked it out in public. As we used to say in the navy: “Hold Fire!” you two. Save it for the Republicans!

It is bad enough we have to hear the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “talking smack” as they say, at the United Nations; now we have to hear it from a former President of the United States and those running for that high office.

On President Bush’s trip to South America, not only has he refrained from talking about Mr. Chavez: he has refused to mention him by name. This is the same Mr. Chavez that called the president the devil at the U.N.

Thoughtful, courteous national discourse has managed to get us through a revolution against the most powerful nation on the Earth, a War Between the States, two World Wars and other tragedies and trying times.

If we can get along, maybe we can discuss the problems and get the best answers. Maybe a more civil and etiquette-driven discussion of the issues can help us get through the War on Terror.

Instead, we have become a nation led by name-callers, insult-slingers and generally rude, angry and impolite representatives.

And sometimes, the media, maybe unintentionally, magnify the animosity.

My friend, retired Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters at The New York Post, wonders about “the unscrupulous nature of those in the media who always discover a dark cloud in the brightest silver lining. They are terror’s cheerleaders.”

What does this teach our children? And does it do us any good?

Candidate for president John Edwards not too long ago defended his own bloggers for their use of “the most hate-filled, blasphemous and obscene remarks—all of which were brought to the attention of Edwards—that have ever been written by any employee of a presidential candidate,” according to the Catholic League of the United States.

In other words: a new low.

Opposite Mr. Edwards, we were delighted to see Governor Bill Richardson call for civility among the national candidates.

Senator James Webb, a former Marine and Secretary of the Navy, met the President of the United States in November 2006 at the White House. Maybe Mr. Webb was a little too taken with himself after beating Senator Allen in the election. Whatever the reason, newspapers reported that Mr. Webb, while a guest at the White House, “Tried to avoid President Bush,” refusing to pass through the reception line or have his picture taken with the president. The president had to seek out the illusive Mr. Webb, a guest inside the Executive Mansion.

“How’s your boy?” President Bush asked the Senator then elect, referring to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”

“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

When Webb was asked about the apparently rude response to a question from the President of the United States, he responded by saying, “So I know the drill. I’m looking forward to working with people in this administration.”

The language and smart remark to the President of the United States, and the host of the event in his own residence, seems an insult to me and not an indicator of someone eager to work with the opposition. It is not the language of a gentleman.

“I’ve got good friends on the Republican side,” added Webb, a former Republican.

I would say, apparently, that Senator Webb does not know the drill: at least the drill taught to the leaders of Communist Vietnam, where the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Vietnam held a cordial discussion in November 2006 or at the United States Naval Academy, Webb’s alma mater, where many of America’s finest young men and women are taught to behave in a certain manner and make the case cogently and without obscene language or smart remarks.

We can assure readers that at the Naval Academy, midshipmen are instructed to conduct themselves as gentlemen and gentlewomen.

Our American history is full of great men who teach us the importance of good conduct for the common good.

Some say George Washington actually authored “The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour [sic] in Company and Conversation.”

Though not the author, Washington embraced good manners so famously that the “Rules” could easily have been his own creation. The good manners of John Adams also echo to us through history.

With Thomas Paine, Adams watched a young American officer conduct himself less than diplomatically and courteously before the King of France.

Adams wrote to his wife, describing the “Man of Choleric Temper.” Adams said the man “like so many Gentlemen from his State, is abrupt and undiplomatic. Last evening, at a Royal Reception, he confronted His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVI with Words both ardent and impatient, whilst Mr. Paine wrung his Hands at the other man’s lack of Tact. Never did I think that I would see our impetuous Paine so pain’d by another’s want of Courtesy and Civility. To our amazement, however, the King took [the man’s] Enthusiasm in good Part.”

When told one of his generals, John C. Fremont, had been nominated by a group of 400 anti-Lincoln loyalists to run for president, Lincoln opened a Bible and read aloud from I Samuel:22, “And everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them; and there were with him about four hundred men.”

Modern statesmen pulled the country together, not by tearing others apart or barking at the media, but more often by thoughtful discourse and conduct.

“Both Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt operated beautifully on the reporters who surrounded them,” wrote David Keirsey and Ray Choiniere in “Presidential Temperament.”

“Both used the press as if it were their own publicity machine.”

This was largely achieved in a civil, diplomatic style.

A modern day solon of wisdom and truth might be former Indiana Congressman and Democrat Lee Hamilton.

Hamilton volunteered some stern remarks about the importance of truth. “Facts are not Republican and they’re not Democrat,” he said.

Neither can I remember John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan (”The Great Communicator”), George H.W. Bush, or George W. Bush look petulant, angry or rude. I also cannot recall any of them knowingly distort the facts.

Other great national leaders also reflect respect, even admiration, for the importance of good protocol and decorum.

Winston Churchill described a 1941 university ceremony this way: “The blitz was running hard at that time, and the night before, the raid … had been heavy. Several hundreds had been killed and wounded. Many houses were destroyed. Buildings next to the university were still burning, and many of the university authorities who conducted the ceremony had pulled on their robes over uniforms begrimed and drenched; but all was presented with faultless ritual and appropriate decorum, and I sustained a very strong and invigorating impression of the superiority of man over the forces that can destroy him.”

Let’s hope leaders become enlightened enough to avoid the forces that can destroy them. For our sake and the sake of our children. Especially as we in the United States near an important national election.

I regret the times that bad conduct, anger and a disregard for etiquette got the best of me. I hope our present day political leaders see the light too.

To get though the war against terror and to achieve victory, a united, clear-thinking leadership just might be important.

The discussion of the war in Iraq has created or modified its own vocabulary, especially in the halls of Congress.

Below is our attempt at an easy to use pocket dictionary to help navigate the verbology being used today.

THIS IS AN UNFINISHED WORK! We need your input by comment to the blog or website you are reading or by email to:jecarey2603@cox.net

Redeploy: (verb) To reduce troops in one area in order to move them to another area. Usually connotes moving troops from combat to the rear. See: Murtha, Okinawa, retreat, surrender on the military goal. See also: Retreat, lose, loss, failure, enemy wins, back down, allies disheartened, terrorists emboldened.

Retreat: (verb or noun) In all prior wars this was an ugly word for Americans. Indicates failure. We retreat (we lose and the other guy wins). Why has this word been moved to the back of the word train? Because it has been easy to understand and clear for hundreds of years. See: redeploy.

Lost: (as in “the war is lost”) (noun or past tense of the verb to lose) Indicates failure or in war, an inability or unwillingness to prevail in battle. Usage: “The war in Iraq is lost and the troop surge is failing” (Senator Harry Reid, reported by AFP, April 19, 2007). See also, “We have not lost a military battle in Iraq (Senator Barak Obama, reported by AP, July 20, 2007).

Mission creep: (noun and verb) The activity of expanding upon the existing military mission gradually. Also used by some Democrats to describe people in support of the mission. Example: “The General is a mission creep.”

Pillow fight: (noun) A derisive term being used by so called “talking heads” to describe the U.S. Senate’s all night Iraq debate.

Pillow talk: (noun leading to a verb) The discussion, usually between partners, that occurs in the bedroom. Usually means one person is attempting to have sex with another. In the case of the current U.S. Congress, the term refers to Senator Reid’s “all nighter” where each party was trying to screw the other. See “all nighter.”

All nighter: (noun) Term used by adolescents who have failed to do their coursework and homework usually in school. An effort to cram a semester or more into one night: often to no avail. See Harry Reid.

Surge: (noun and verb) A temporary increase in troop levels modulated by political restriction. Not an attack but better than a retreat.

Support: (verb) As in “support the troops.” An often used and misused sign of patriotic zeal by Democrat Party member who really would do anything to downsize the Army. When used by Democrats, the word “support” seldomly means a plus-up in the budget. Often used by Democrats in an attempt to bolster backing from the military, and potential red-state voters.

In reality, most Democrats only “support” the troops when they are a) deployed on U.N.-sponsored peacekeeping missions in Haiti, Bosnia, or New Orleans; or b) when a Democrat President is in office, and he needs to rattle the saber to divert attention from domestic problems.

Undercutting: (verb or noun) Usually refers to a disruption of normal structural support such as sawing off one leg of a stool. Am action leading to instability and uneasiness on the part of users of the structure. In Washington currently, refers to efforts to deny U.S. troops proper funding or support. See: treason.

Election season: (noun) That time when politicians can be trusted even less than “normal.” See all self anointed candidates for president (Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Romney, Giuliani, McCain and a host of others).

Troop morale: (noun) This word apparently does not appear in any Democrat dictionary. It means, as any football coach can tell you, if you pull together as a team you have a chance to actually “win.” In April the Senate Majority Leader told our troop, the American people and our enemies that the war was “lost.” Good luck, coach: you don’t get it.

Best interest of the United States: I am sorry but this term is no longer in vogue in the Congress (or anywhere else).

White Flag: (noun) Made famous by the French in WWII, the White Flag denoted surrender to the enemy so that the enemy would cease any operations against the unit displaying the white flag realizing that they had given up the fight without winning. The White Flag Party now denotes the Democrats in Washington for the same reasons.
(Contributed to Peace and Freedom by Tom Boley)

[The work above is posted as an unfinished work. Those that wish to contribute should email jecarey2603@cox.net ]

COUNTERPOINT

Maybe the Rhetoric is too Harsh: The Phoney Debate

THE SENATE Democratic leadership spent the past week trying to prove that Congress is deeply divided over Iraq, with Democrats pressing and Republicans resisting a change of course. In fact that’s far from the truth. A large majority of senators from both parties favor a shift in the U.S. mission that would involve substantially reducing the number of American forces over the next year or so and rededicating those remaining to training the Iraqi army, protecting Iraq’s borders and fighting al-Qaeda. President Bush and his senior aides and generals also support this broad strategy, which was formulated by the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission. Mr. Bush recently said that “it’s a position I’d like to see us in.”

The emerging consensus is driven by several inescapable facts. First, the Iraqi political reconciliation on which the current U.S. military surge is counting is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Second, the Pentagon cannot sustain the current level of forces in Iraq beyond next spring without rupturing current deployment practices and placing new demands on the already stretched Army and Marine Corps. Finally, a complete pullout from Iraq would invite genocide, regional war and a catastrophic setback to U.S. national security.

The decision of Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) to deny rather than nourish a bipartisan agreement is, of course, irresponsible. But so was Mr. Reid’s answer when he was asked by the Los Angeles Times how the United States should manage the explosion of violence that the U.S. intelligence community agrees would follow a rapid pullout. “That’s a hypothetical. I’m not going to get into it,” the paper quoted the Democratic leader as saying.

For now Mr. Reid’s cynical politicking and willful blindness to the stakes in Iraq don’t matter so much. The result of his maneuvering was to postpone congressional debate until September, when Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, will report on results of the surge — in other words, just the outcome the White House was hoping for. But then, as now, the country will desperately need a strategy for Iraq that can count on broad bipartisan support, one aimed at carrying the U.S. mission through the end of the Bush administration and beyond. There are serious issues still to resolve, such as whether a drawdown should begin this fall or next year, how closely it should be tied to Iraqi progress, how fast it can proceed and how the remaining forces should be deployed.

There’s no guarantee that Mr. Bush can agree with Congress on those points or that he will make the effort to do so. But a Democratic strategy of trying to use Iraq as a polarizing campaign issue and as a club against moderate Republicans who are up for reelection will certainly have the effect of making consensus impossible — and deepening the trouble for Iraq and for American security.